1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an object detecting system and an object detecting method.
2. Description of the Related Art
A related object detecting system calculates an optical flow (a vector that represents motion on an image captured by a vehicle-mounted camera) from the captured image in order to detect a moving object. Also, the motion of the vehicle is estimated from the rotational speed of the wheels and the steering angle of the steering wheel. In addition, a spatial model of the space ahead of the vehicle is generated by calculating the distance to an object existing ahead of the vehicle. On the basis of the optical flow, the motion of the vehicle, and the spatial model, a moving object is detected from the captured image.
In the related object detecting system, a spatial model ahead of the vehicle is generated, and a moving object is detected from a captured image on the basis of the spatial model and the motion of the vehicle. However, the amount of processing time required to estimate the motion of the vehicle and to calculate the distance to the object makes it difficult to detect the moving object at high speed. The problem is the time that it takes to begin detection of the optical flow. In order to estimate the optical flow of the moving object, the related object detecting system needs object movement of more than two pixels per frame in order to detect the object. Since the movement of an object with a high collision possibility is small on the captured image, it may take two or more seconds to detect the movement of an object with a high collision possibility.